In the wee hours of the morning, when sleep was curiously absent, I listened to Diana Gabaldon, author of the popular “Outlander) series talk about writing. One particular part of her speech jumped out at me. She said, “I write all the time.” Apparently, when she gets stuck on one thing, she switches to something else. Then, she switches to another something else and keeps doing this until the first thing she was writing on starts speaking to her again. “This way,” she told her audience, “I’m always writing and don’t lose my momentum as easily as if I stopped writing altogether.”
Sound advice, and one I am starting to put in to practice. The story I’m currently working on comes to me in spurts. Actually, everything I work on comes to me that way. For a few weeks I’ll be focused totally on a story, and then, poof, it’ll stop talking to me. If I stop writing altogether, it takes a while to get my momentum up and running. So, when the characters aren’t talking, I work on my blog posts. I work on 2 blogs, so sometimes, this can be a lot of writing. I also write in my personal diary, which I started in January of 2016. Since then, I rarely go a day without writing something. I hope it shows up in my books. :)
Speaking of Diana Gabaldon, I enjoy her writing. I don’t always agree with the content of her books, but she is an excellent writer. Her writing advice is worth listening to. She knows how to use words to great effect. From my personal experience, this is a skill to be learned. Then again, growing up listening to audio books, sometimes I just know without being able to explain, why a particular word fits a particular sentence. This can drive my poor children crazy during language arts class, BTW. But, I digress.
The other day while editing a paragraph, I couldn’t think of the “right” word that would convey the meaning or emotions of the scene. So, I looked it up on an online thesaurus. The “right” word, turns out was already there. Looking it up only confirmed it to me, but I had known it all the time. Of course, this doesn’t happen every time I sit down to write. Sometimes, words just aren’t there. But, the more I study words, the more I learn how to use them.
Which brings me to the point of this post that I have been avoiding—what to talk about today. Ha! I’m only writing down what has been going through my mind about writing lately. I have no point, except to talk about writing. I have very little to say that would be of interest to the world, so I’m talking about one of the things I not only enjoy but want to learn how to do better.
Someone asked me how to blog the other day. It probably was a scammer, but I answered, just the same and said something along the lines of, “Find a topic you or your followers are interested in, write what you want, and be consistent.” Then, I had to ask myself, am I doing those things? Does what I want to talk about interest anyone? After blogging for a year, is anyone listening, anyway? LOL
Ok, announcement time. I am moving. Nope, not out of my teensy house that doesn’t have enough bathrooms or kitchen counters but here on the web. That’s right, I have a new website. This blog will stay here, but from now on, you can find me at sjwellsauthor.com.
sjwellsauthor.com has a Books page that lists all my current published books and where you can purchase them online. It also has a sample of one of them for you to read. Another page is the Old Blogs page, which gives you the link to this blog plus one I kept several years ago, oldtimechristian.blogspot.com. You can follow my blog on my new site, and connect with me on Facebook. Keep in mind, though, it is a work in progress and isn’t all that it will be. :) I’m excited about the new site, and I hope you will come visit me there.
Well, I know I usually end my posts with, “Come back next week”, but I won’t be blogging here any longer. You’ll have to hop over to sjwellsauthor.com and see what’s cookin’ over there. God bless you, faithful readers for sticking with me, and I pray I’ll see you at my new home on the web.
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